arma3_model

[gentle merlin]

what's the error you're getting?

[celest arch]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/LOD check here for reference

[toxic needle]

on .obj it says this:

[gentle merlin]

well first thing you should do is what the error tells you - check your faces to make sure they only have at most 4 verts

but also if you're using blender grab mr clock's addon instead of the old one, it has validation

[toxic needle]

i have it but whatever i do it just wont validate it

[gentle merlin]

it tells you what's wrong if you open the console during validation

[gentle merlin]

well there you go, more htan 4 verts on a face somewhere

[toxic needle]

ok thnx

from what i see it is probably in this button here

or actually on both

its weird tho cause i gave it to a friend he could import it just fine

[gentle merlin]

he might've just run triangulation on it before export

if you wanna be lazy just press ctrl+t

(iirc that's the shortcut for triangulate)

[toxic needle]

oh ye looks like its fixed

thnx

[wraith tendon]

Schultz - Today at 3:30 AM
penetration? nope
that's controlled by the fire geolod

---

iirc also with the assigend material

[celest arch]

not in the resolution lods afaik

[wraith tendon]

Edited 😃

[celest arch]

wut

are you still wetting your bed with sweat? 😛

[wraith tendon]

i got something in the back of my grey mass/mess calles brain, that it was also influenced by the material

Nah, without Sweat this time 😄

[celest arch]

really I don't understand what you mean

what material who where

[wraith tendon]

Metal, wood, etc

[celest arch]

yeah

[wraith tendon]

Penetration rate, etc

<- brain still not rly functioning

[celest arch]

yeah I see

😄

[wraith tendon]

fu

^^

[celest arch]

what I was telling @civic stratus is that those are controlled by the fire geo lod

assign a penetration rvmat there, the engine will act accordingly

[wraith tendon]

missread then

[celest arch]

could be a generic material rvmat (wood, plastic etc) and the game will calculate ballistics according to the fire geolod components widths

or there's also specific preset materials (2mm metal etc)

[wraith tendon]

tl:dr

😄

[celest arch]

if you dont assign any rvmats, I think it defaults to concrete not sure though

[wraith tendon]

dirt

[celest arch]

dirt is the bullet effect, but I think the property is concrete

[wraith tendon]

Possible

[celest arch]

aka uncooked tinned ravioli

[umbral shuttle]

So this page should still be relevant https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Bullet_penetrability
what is a inhomogeneous vs homogenous component mean?
is it like of like this where in a single component the thickness could vary (which i thought that would break convexity

[stuck oyster]

no it means theres also now materials that make component surface simulate a given thickness

[umbral shuttle]

okay thats the part in bisurf where say thickness is 20, and the actual firegeo is modled as 40, it will be simulated as 20. but if model is lower its simulated at that lower thickness regardless of what bisurf says?

and so does the line that says thickeness <= 0, component is homogenous mean the simulated thickness will be whatever the modeled fire geo is?

[stuck oyster]

lower will be treated at its own thickness if I remember right

[umbral shuttle]

Okay cool I think I had already understood all that before just didnt get why the words homogeneous and inhomogeneous, last question for the night/day??

how can I find out caliber/impact velocity I should use to have a bullet say penetrate this sandbag, like what would be the penetrability to overcome what I assume is that 1980.20 that the sandbag has

[stuck oyster]

testing

[umbral shuttle]

like it doesnt penetrate cause

caliber = 1.2, impact velocity is 665.43
1.2*665.43 = 798 < 1980?

[bright echo]

yeah whatevers lower, the rvmat/bisurf thickness or the physical
ifa3 learned this the hard way as a lot of the fire geos for like I44 models etc were modelled on vibe alone as i44 used scripted penetration anyway

[sullen jasper]

is there a tutorial for building assets?

[stuck oyster]

No. There is unfortunately very limited amount of tutorials

however if you know basic 3D modeling the necessary concepts are not super difficult to understand

[sullen jasper]

Working on that

trying simple stuff

[stuck oyster]

so first thing that comes to mind is that none of your walls have any thickness

[sullen jasper]

i know

i just wanna create simple building without too much moddeling etc

[stuck oyster]

yeeh

but thats not really a thing

buildings are complex entities

[sullen jasper]

so i need to have thickness

[stuck oyster]

if you intent it to to have interior

[sullen jasper]

this is just a test building

[stuck oyster]

or well

you dont have to

[sullen jasper]

later i will do interior

[stuck oyster]

ok so

honestly

do it properly

make the walls proper thickness

[sullen jasper]

Im planning to have big ops building with custom lockers for my guys

[stuck oyster]

no point in this exercise if you dont

[sullen jasper]

also other stuff like shooting range inside etc

is building same like?

like target?

[stuck oyster]

I dont understand what you mean by that

same how?

[sullen jasper]

I’ve created the custom locker object itself so should I follow the same procedure for the building as well? Is it the same?

[stuck oyster]

in basic principles yes all static objects like that follow same rules

[sullen jasper]

Thanks, sounds good. I’ll follow that approach and send a screenshot once it’s done.
The locker itself is already finished. I made it so that there’s a model of my vest and helmet. When I take the vest, it gives me my full loadout (the one saved in Arsenal) via an ACE interaction point. The same goes for the helmet, but that one only gives me the helmet. I’m currently testing and improving my skills a bit.

In the future, I’d like to try working on vehicles as well, but I don’t feel confident enough for that yet at all 😄

[white oak]

geometry has a minimum width of 0.1 meters so you should make your walls thick enough to incorporate that

[charred bolt]

Have you tested that? It might be an urban myth.

[white oak]

yesn't, I've done some testing but not enough to make assertions
what I've found is that you can make a room with wall geometries thinner than 0.1 but since the overall geometry is wider than 0.1 it will still work
however with that setup it became more common for objects to go through the geometry ie. drive a car through it
so better to stick to the minimum of 0.1
also it makes things easier for windows/doors etc.

[stuck oyster]

thin geometries might get skipped if theres lag

I recall

[charred bolt]

I read it without the context of application to houses. Fairly sure it's not true (at all) with vehicles.

[warped mural]

i am trying to get the muzzle flash working for my weapon, and i cant figure it out
either it doesnt show up at all or it is always on
can someone explain how it works?

[charred bolt]

Name the muzzle flash proxy in your p3d resolution LOD's as zasleh.
In the config.cpp turret class for the gunner who has the weapon with this muzzle flash, set
selectionFireAnim = "zasleh";
In model.cfg, sections[] = {"zasleh"};
You can also add random rotation to the muzzle flash, and deal with multiple weapon muzzle flashes, but that's secondary to getting it working.

[warped mural]

got it to work, I had the proxy have both the "zasleh" and "muzzleFlash" selections...

On a somewhat related note, how do I stop the gun from sinking into the ground when rested on ground in prone?
Seems fine when rested on an object (pic 2)

[marsh canyon]

IIRC having bipod memory at the right position should fix it

[bright echo]

make sure you have a view pilot lod too

[oblique vapor]

Hi guys

[tribal rain]

anyone got any idea how id pinpoint whats going on here? im assuming its a rogue vertex/vertices or maybe even an unassigned proxy?
Ive highlighted it in yellow

[stuck oyster]

unassigned vertex yeah

should be present in source file too if you test with ArmaRig

[tribal rain]

so just bring it in to arma rig assign the uniform to arma rig and then see what the issue is?

[stuck oyster]

thats what I would do yeah

[tribal rain]

coolio ill give it a whirl

[tribal rain]

https://tenor.com/view/well-there's-your-problem-mythbusters-adam-savage-jamie-hyneman-broken-gif-17934071823679545476

entire right arm seemed to be borked in major areas

going to redo it now

but thanks was racking my brain for ages wondering what the hell it could of been and the idea of having to sift through 60k verts to find a rogue one was just

https://tenor.com/view/broooo-mikhail-varshavski-doctor-mike-bruh-oh-come-on-gif-26545905

[stuck oyster]

weighting with rig is recommended 😅 so you can see how it behaves

[tribal rain]

the more you know 😅

Just been hardlining it by weightpainting and weight transferring from the example model and then praying to the arma gods that it works

[icy pier]

that uniform looks sick btw

[tribal rain]

cheers amigo

[celest arch]

hey hey

[torpid root]

does anyone know what mod the top highlighted mod is from?

[stuck oyster]

That is the mods name

[torpid root]

i cant find it in the workshop

[stuck oyster]

name feels familiar somehow

maybe it was discussed somewhere recently

its a matter for #arma3_questions

since this channel is about 3d model making

[cunning temple]

Didn't someone talk about it on terrain channel the other day or was that Africa objects?

[austere drift]

Could someone remind me what LOD is used to determine a resting point for a weapon?

[marsh canyon]

Memory

[ocean swift]

afternoon chaps can anyone advise me on a guide for reducing section counts on a model. i have the following problem for example http://puu.sh/n580q/f6c451897e.png

[remote plume]

I'm having some issues with the arma 2 samples, specifically characters. All of the ones I've tried show a bunch of errors, most commonly too many bones assigned to vertexes. If I instead use the binarized version from the game files of the same character none of these errors occur. Is this a known issue with the samples or am I just missing something here? I'm looking to make some basic changes to some character models for a mod I'm working on.

[stuck oyster]

the A2 characters are not directly compatible with Arma3

so they need the weighting fixed

[remote plume]

Thing is the mod I'm making is for arma2 OA and they give errors there too

the game version of the same file give no errors however, Maybe they fixed the issues for the game but never updated the samples, but I'm just guessing here

[stuck oyster]

how do you pack the pbo?

[remote plume]

I'm not the one packing it, just trying to help a guy with some models. But he uses PBO Manager if that helps. If you need more info I can ask

isn't stuff like too many bones assigned an issue inside of the model file rather? I didn't think thats an issue that could be caused by packing pbo's wrong etc but then again I'm not very experienced handling arma stuff

[stuck oyster]

pbo manager is not the right tool for packing a mod

[stuck oyster]

I would recommend starting learning the stuff from something simpler than a character

just to get all the workflow correct first

[remote plume]

It may not be. However the same workflow works as long as you use the game model instead of the sample one so to me it seems logical that issue is with the model not the workflow in this particular case. But it also seems weird that all of these sample characters have such big issues so again I am unsure.

[stuck oyster]

noo you are wrong

because pbo manager does not binarize the pbo

it just showes the stuff into a box

it does not do the actual processing (binarization) that assets need

= they break

[remote plume]

ok

I believe he tried packing it with binPBO with binarize active with the same results

[stuck oyster]

addon builder

is part of Arma2 tools

thats the official tool for it

[tacit hull]

we love official stuff 🙂

[stuck oyster]

this is what I mean getting the basic workflow right

🤫 @tacit hull

[remote plume]

Well thanks for narrowing it down a bit further. I appreciate it ❤️

[stuck oyster]

I dont know if Mikeros tools still work with Arma2 or have they moved to A3 fully. But those would give you more error checking on pbo packing

so there is less to guess

[copper scarab]

can you set a memory point or reference on a helmet for where NVGs should sit or is it specific to the NVG model itself?

[stuck oyster]

nvg model

[copper scarab]

roger ty

now to learn how to make an NVG xD

[stuck oyster]

if you want helmets to be compatible you should adjust your helmet to fit the default mount

[cunning temple]

Arrowhead is still listed in settings

[stuck oyster]

ah so it is 😄

👍

[sullen jasper]

feedback? still in building phase trying to figure out layout of the building

main hall center, armory with shootingrange on left behind centre offices and on the right side gym

[stuck oyster]

if you want realism, add toilets, maybe locker room and storage room

or if you dont want to make all the rooms you can just make some space for them and have a door that does not open

[cunning temple]

Be careful of object size limit

[stuck oyster]

to keep things simple you will want to keep it in 50 meter diameter

[tidal prism]

Anyone knows any good modeler for some custom military gear can be a website

[sullen jasper]

got under

its alright

[austere drift]

My bad, I meant LOD of the object to rest the weapon on

[sullen jasper]

Im changing whole building 😄

[woeful viper]

Geometry LOD. It can be finnicky.

[sour bough]

The wiki should be updated if this is the case. It says 50m radius rn

[north sundial]

That is correct for geometry

But roadway is 36m radius

So for buildings keeping it well below the 72m diameter means you’re much less likely to run into issues

Because it’s a circle and buildings are usually squared off

[median nebula]

does anyone know how to convert vehicles with textures from blender to arma 3?

[stuck oyster]

yes many do. but that requires some basic 3d knowledge

and models from other games can not be used

[eager terrace]

What does it take to take a turret off one vehicle and put it on another? Not sure how its done with Arma 3

[stuck oyster]

not possible

[eager terrace]

why

[stuck oyster]

because the models cant be edited

[eager terrace]

why not

[stuck oyster]

why does it matter why not when they cant

you cant change that

[eager terrace]

how do you make variants of vehicles then

[stuck oyster]

you dont

[eager terrace]

uh, why?

[stuck oyster]

unless you make the models yourself

models are in format that cant be edited, they are not allowed to be edited by the licensing/EULA of the game, you dont have rights to them.

does that explain it?

[eager terrace]

are the turrets of vehicles part of the model or can they be taken off with configs or scripts

[stuck oyster]

they are part of the vehicles yes

not separate

and no they can not be separated

the game is not designed in that way

[eager terrace]

So all I need to do is make a turret in blender? Right?

and I can put in the game

[stuck oyster]

well then you have a turret sure

but you dont have empty tanks to put it on

and the kind of attachTo thing is not always reliable

[eager terrace]

well thats okay, I can make it an emplacement

I want to make a big caliber turret meant for blowing up infantry and vehicles

[stuck oyster]

well sure you can make a model in blender for that

[eager terrace]

You're sure there isn't a way to get rid of the turret without editing the model? A guy on the workshop did it and he didn't have to edit the models at all

he saved it as compositions, but the mod is outdated so it doesn't work currently

[stuck oyster]

some models might have turret set up to be hideable with animations. but thats about it

there is no guarantee a model has that

[eager terrace]

he somehow did it, but i don't know how

yeah its animations

this lockTurret [[0], true];
this lockTurret [[0,0], true];

this removeWeaponTurret ["autocannon_35mm",[0]];  
this removeMagazineTurret ["680Rnd_35mm_AA_shells_Tracer_Green",[0]];
this removeMagazineTurret ["ACE_120Rnd_35mm_ABM_shells_Tracer_Green",[0]];

this removeWeaponTurret ["missiles_titan_AA",[0]];  
this removeMagazineTurret ["4Rnd_Titan_long_missiles_O",[0]];
this removeMagazineTurret ["4Rnd_Titan_long_missiles_O",[0]];```

it works actually

[indigo mountain]

Not all vehicles have them as animations

[median nebula]

i know i made my own model and my own textures i just dont know how to convert everything

[stuck oyster]

you can check out the arma3 sampels on steam for reference. And look up older Blender to Arma tutorials for the principles of what to do

even if the UI in the tutorial looks different then methods are still the same, just have to find where things are

[eager terrace]

this though

you can export models you make in sprocket into blender, then into arma

[stuck oyster]

using ripped models is not allowed

we have 0 tolerance for that crap

[eager terrace]

how is it ripped

[stuck oyster]

look it up

[eager terrace]

I don't understand how it can be called ripped when you made the model yourself

[stuck oyster]

you didnt

you use parts in the game

you adjust them

but they are not your full creation

and the modeld cant be "exported" without ripping tools

[eager terrace]

every vertice of the model is saved in plain text

it can directly go into blender

[stuck oyster]

looking at the internet. it cant.

[indigo mountain]

Even if it could, just because something is easily extracted doesn't mean it's okay to steal it

[sour bough]

Is there an animation source for what index of OpticsModes the person is using?

[stuck oyster]

🤔 hmm

good question

[eager terrace]

how can you steal what you made

[north sundial]

If I understand correctly what sprocket is, it’s because it contains assets that are proprietary. Like let’s say one of the tank muzzles.

You haven’t specifically modelled that part by hand or got it from somewhere with an open use licence, so you “making” it isn’t the same as owning the rights to the model generated in that engine

It’s kind of like a more complicated spore creature creator. You’ve used their program to create the design, but dependent on their licence, that design and the mesh it outputs would still be the property of the developer/publisher

https://store.steampowered.com//eula/1674170_eula_0

[sour bough]

If there is, it's undocumented on the wiki like the source for whether your aiming down sights or not

[north sundial]

On that Eula, as I read it basically says that you cannot extract the assets from the game and distribute them

But not an ip lawyer so not fully in the know

[eager terrace]

think you lied

[north sundial]

Come off it hahaha, lying is abit far fetched

My interpretation is that things you created yourself would be mod assets and such

You didn’t create the tank tracks that are procedurally put on to the vehicle so I would count it as stuff the game creator made

It’s a very ambiguous Eula in all honesty, like I said I’m not an expert so was just giving advise. Make your own stuff in a program that clearly gives you the rights to use it wherever you like to avoid any potential issues with BI

[fast topaz]

is there any downside of using oxygen 2 instead of object builder?

[digital moss]

• you may not distribute anything the author has made, unless they have permission.
• You can distribute anything that was generated using the game engine. i.e you make something using the game engine, then you can distribute what you made.

in an arma context, for a similar example:
You cannot distribute A3 assets, but you can distribute a scenario/map/etc that uses those assets providing you dont include the actual assets in that distribution (i.e you put the a3 files into the map pbo, this would break the permissions given).

In the context of sprocket. You can share tanks you have made (export blueprint etc), but you cannot share the parts/assets that make up the tank.

[icy pier]

breaking the heated discussion, anyone worked with making certain parts of a vest IR material, so it would light up in night vision and could point me towards how to do that?

[oblique vapor]

it's like comparing a bicycle to a car

[carmine gull]

Naturally O2 doesn't support everything that OB can do

[fast topaz]

so, OB would be better?

because it just doesn't work

[carmine gull]

It'd be better if it actually ran on your computer

[copper scarab]

Double checking, is there a sample for NVGs in A3Samples?

[stuck oyster]

no but there is the nvgSlot model that is the NVG base you can use to fit your nvg on

[copper scarab]

Righty, what's the best way to go about learning how to setup and make NVG models work?

[fervent steppe]

@fast topaz <<<is there any downside of using oxygen 2 instead of object builder?

well technically there really are the sae but ob has support for the physx lods

however if you know the actuall name(you can get the values by looking at the model in eliteness) of the lod you can add it in o2 and it will work

but its better to just use ob if you want to use that program

as far as section count goes what does the section count say in the bottom left corner of OB?

[last spindle]

it's like comparing a bicycle to a car
Naturally O2 doesn't support everything that OB can do
Both false, it is like compaing a 2008 Honda to a 2013 Honda that is all
the only reall additions to OB are FBX import and PhysX lod, which can both work in O2, you just need to put the fbx.dll in the right place, and use the correct full name for the PhysX LOD, but you shouyld definatley trade in that O2 for OB just for the fact that O2 is a legacy tool with not suppor

[indigo mountain]

I'm currently in the process of fixing a lot of our props that are rotated incorrectly (e.g. visually the model is facing X but something like getDir returns Y). Should I fix the ones that are rotated 180 off by rotating the model in the p3d or should I use the reversed property in config?

I assume p3d for createSimpleObject with the path. I only noticed it since we have a vehicle and prop version of an asset and were rotated differently despite using the same p3d

[indigo mountain]

Okay so looking into this more, it seems like all units(uniforms)/vehicles/etc are rotated 180 degrees but have reversed = 1 in their config to rotate them the right way, but props / everything else (from what I've seen) aren't rotated and have reversed = 0

[stuck oyster]

in model space general rules i that things face towards -Z axis in P3d

(Y up)

but weapons face "left" towards -X

[indigo mountain]

Is that generally or just for units/vehicles?
Because that results in objects visually facing south instead of north

[stuck oyster]

all vehicles and characters and buildings are made facing "back" yes

weapons are facing "left" due to how the proxies are set up in the character

[indigo mountain]

I guess all vanilla buildings are just rotated wrong then, spawned a couple to see and the fronts of them are facing south
I guess I'll keep them facing -Z in blender for consistency, but reverse them in config because I need getDir _x == 0 to be the object visually facing north

[last spindle]

@quick terrace Update on the base of that tactical AK, it started life as an AK104

[stuck oyster]

That is likely why the reverse parameter exists

there is also named property for it

for non config terrain objects

[indigo mountain]

None of the houses use it so not sure ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The fronts of them are all facing south, despite the object's getDir being 0

[gusty girder]

What cause a car, the right side to be lower then the left side, like what controls or settings?

[icy pier]

does anyone have a uniform model rig I can attatch my uniform on

[north sundial]

Sample man in arma 3 samples

[sour bough]

My assumption is you're importing one.

In that case, check mass distribution, wheel bounds, and the wheels class (specifically the spring strengths)

[icy pier]

thats what I initially thought but I couldnt find any armature in the character example? assuming its the p3d file

[gusty girder]

@sour bough Yes that is what I'm trying to do

I'll do that thank you

[stuck oyster]

there is no ready armature in the samples. but for weight testing and painting you can use the Macsers Armarig on ModDB

[icy pier]

I see I will try that

[sullen jasper]

someone got knife model?

[stuck oyster]

The channel is more about model making that model having. Is there some reason you are looking for one?

[alpine relic]

IM going insane im not sure what im doing wrong, at first it was a mistake in blender "Spine3" in vortex groups then tried "spine3" didnt work either so i gone to "spine2"

i can sen the either config.cpp and model.cfg if needed

[stuck oyster]

youll need a model.cfg with the human skeleton defined in it and cfgModels class that connects to the p3d by name

compare with how arma3 samples set up the characters model.cfg

[sullen jasper]

wanna use it on my vest

[quick terrace]

?

[sour bough]

Is there a specific "trick" to getting UGL sights to be accurate? I'm doing a sight similar to the mx one that's just a red dot on a swivel.

[stuck oyster]

Testing and tweaking I'm afraid

[bright echo]

yeah set up file patching and shoot a lot of grenades 😬

[sour bough]

...It seems like I could do math for a parabolic trajectory for it?

It's just that the OP_look point doesn't seem to animate

[bright echo]

it doesn't

the memorypoints are fixed

[sour bough]

yeah

If I can figure out how to predictably make you look a particular direction, I could just math it out

[bright echo]

i'd hope it's possible but I never could figure it out

[sour bough]

There's no way the BI way to do it was guessing and trial-and-error, so there has to be a method

[bright echo]

i'm more impressed when people do it for the rifles iron sights

[sour bough]

rifles don't actually need to be accurate iirc

[bright echo]

although tbh it seems a lot of the time people cheat and only check it for a few ranges

[sour bough]

bullet sim does it automatically iirc

[bright echo]

nah it disables the engine zeroing if you have multiple eye positions

would be amazing if it didnt do that

[sour bough]

...i could just use only the angles the sample used but uh

[bright echo]

if you're using standard 203 40mm or at least the same airfriction/initspeeds etc you might aswell

[sour bough]

the samples zero for some weird numbers

[stuck oyster]

Those work right only if your launcher and sight offset are same

[sour bough]

yank the sight off and make people guess let's gooooo

[pallid island]

inb4 grenade with different air resistance messes that up more

[stuck oyster]

Testing range with good targets at right ranges is relatively fast to work with. I prefer to do 1 range at a time

[bright echo]

yeah if its only a handful of ranges it doesnt take very long

[stuck oyster]

😅

[bright echo]

it's when you have to modify model geometry and the sight goes from 100m - 2000m that you just want to pull your own head off

[sour bough]

Do you have any tips for making the new eye points look directly at the red dot sight? Only my intial one can actually see the collimator

(I'm taking the initial one and rotating it with 3d cursor at the OP swivel point, which might be wrong)

[stuck oyster]

Does the sight turn as well?

[sour bough]

Yeah, sight has a swivel point

Initially I was doing 10 degree steps

my suspicion is that i'm just not rotating the eye points around the right axis?

[pallid island]

i wonder if you can use ingame ballistics computer to calculate angles for you. I remember adding 40mm to the tank and it shooting at like 40 degrees up when ranged to 1km+ (all numbers are likely wrong)

[sour bough]

lmao

[bright echo]

ive only done AT launchers recently but they work the same way

lemme double check the samples its been awhile since I looked at them

ok yeah sample did it the same

the thing you keep in mind is the eye_look is always static, the eye memorypoints I only ever adjusted vertically

rather than like, create an arc

[sour bough]

honestly the only reason i'm doing an arc is so i can easily tell what the angle is

[bright echo]

last time I did it for the M9 bazooka I ended up having this horrible thing while i was making note of the positions/angles for the sight

[sour bough]

oh no.

[bright echo]

im pretty sure I did that the hard way though

[pallid island]

i mean, "check with 1 degree step, mark correct ones, delete others" sounds like a decent way to do things in one pass

[bright echo]

yeah

thats basically what it was

[sour bough]

yeah I just need to reliably make all the 1 degree steps actually look at the collimator

[pallid island]

you need the eye mempoint to coincide with where the collimator's dot is on the lens, i suppose?

[sour bough]

...thing is, the dot rotates as the collimator does

[pallid island]

ah, my bad

[bright echo]

ah is it a proper collimator?

[sour bough]

same idea as the sample ugl / mx ugl

[bright echo]

like using the shader/rvmat

[sour bough]

yeah

[bright echo]

because I think there's a reason the one on the MX is just a red painted dot

[sour bough]

wait it IS?

[bright echo]

I think so, it was last I looked

[sour bough]

oh my god i'm looking right now

[bright echo]

which tbh was awhile ago

[pallid island]

please don't make me re-download samples yet again out of sheer curiosity 🤣

[sour bough]

the mx one uses a collim rvmat

wait...it might use another one

[alpine relic]

ARE YA TAKIN A BLOODY PISS, I CHANGE THE Vortex group name to "head" in blender AND IT WORKS kinda

"spine3" "Spine3" and "spine2" just didnt work so i thought "Wait i made a hat that did work how about i use that vortex group "head" surely that wouldnt work but i dont know what else to do"

[sour bough]

i think it uses the old tube method because i shouldn't be able to see that dot with the regular collimator rvmat in thermals

[bright echo]

IIRC the collimator shader doesnt work with different eye memorypoints

I had similar issue with the M9A1 which i tried using it on and yeah

[sour bough]

What method did you end up using? Dot on the thing or the cone method?

or uh

tube method i mean

[bright echo]

dot, well, crosshair

i think I did consider the tube but i can't remember why it wasnt used in the end

may have caused other issues, or didn't work, or 'cbf'

[sour bough]

i think if i delete the red dot and make people guess, it would be funny.

the concept calls to me like the green goblin mask.

[stuck oyster]

Yeah the collimator might not work turned.

[stuck oyster]

Head is not rightgroup to weight backpack with. Something wrong in your workflow if the correct selections don't work.

[quick terrace]

did you make an update, can i see pic? 😛 @last spindle

[last spindle]

i have been working in lowpoly clean up, but it seems the guy that made the highpoly fked up, the rear rail was made 10mm to high and blocks the rear leaf sight, so back to him to fix, i hate zbrush.......

if it was a more traditional hp method, OSD, TS then i could fix it easy enough, but Zbrush mesh is one awefull mess

[honest yoke]

Hi,
i've wanted to import some models into arma 3 from blender and well i am kinda lost
i understood that i need lods for the model and some more stuff
and i am kinda lost with everything
what do i do first
how do i start
where do i even understand what do i need to
i've got everything in terms of it
models are ready
but i have no clue how to import them and well the explenations really kinda keep me in the fog
is there anyone could maybe clear up some stuff for me?
TLDR : too new for blender to understand whats going on and asking for assistance to understand how is it even working

[stuck oyster]

Youll want to use Arma Toolbox addon to export directly into p3d (there 2 different plugins, choose 1) you can look up tutorials from ElTyranos, MrClock, Sokolonko, Battlestad to see the basic workflow (though some tutorials are made with older blender so UI looks different, the workflow is still the same just got to find the right buttons)

[honest yoke]

thats already some kind of light but i just hope its not a guy yapping on how he's doing his own model and actually explaining whats going on

[stuck oyster]

as far as I remember those are more about the technical steps

and you cant really say your model is all ready if you dont know the implementation process 😅

Id wager youll need to still adjust a lot of stuff to fit Arma

[honest yoke]

oh, well i did not create it since its high quality i just liked it and wanted to import it into arma

but i thought it would be a bit easier to import but i guessed wrong and thats aight i need to start learning something new

[stuck oyster]

yeah ready models are not really shortcuts

there is usually tons to process to work in X engine

in this case Arma

[honest yoke]

totaly understandable, knew it wouldnt be easy and prepped myself for it but still went on for it

now it might be funny
but chatgpt said i must do theese ones

clean mesh

proper scale and orientation

fit to an Arma body

rig/weight it to the Arma skeleton

export/import into Arma format

make needed LODs

create config.cpp

pack and test in game

[stuck oyster]

first mistake

asked gpt

[honest yoke]

thats understandable but at the same time chatgpt also recommended me to come here lol

anyways i did fit the plate carrier into the arma body via arma tools, but its not enough since i need to do weight/rig into the skeleton
LODS i did but not geometry which i have 0 clue on how to but learning from a second to a second

[stuck oyster]

for character you can copy most of the technical parts from the sample man in the arma 3 samples from steam

[honest yoke]

thought charatchers are way more harder than plate carriers

[stuck oyster]

they share some things

the samples in any case show you what you need

[honest yoke]

okay

well

the samples do make things easier

but ill try

[stuck oyster]

the wiki also contains info on some basic concepts like lods

and the pinned messages in the various modding channels have some specific tips as well

[honest yoke]

that would be a good thing, lods a kinda simple but wierd for me

do i really need to go one by one on each part of the model to decimate it?

or i dont need to decimate each item one by one inside of the model

[stuck oyster]

this is one of those things that cant be shortcutted

each resolution lod should be about half complex from the previous one

they are used to draw the model at farther distance

[honest yoke]

true, i was able to make 5/7 lods be exported. i guess it wont work probably but ill try

atleast its something

[north sundial]

First correct response from an LLM ever “go ask some real people”

Hahah

[honest yoke]

I mean look, i kinda got it working

its not something id share proudly but its something lmao

[stuck oyster]

its good start

the problem with chatgpt and the like is that its totally random if the info they put together is actually correct

[honest yoke]

Yeah ChatGPT was never reliable source
A good ChatGPT user uses it only to give out small opinions
Never give out the whole wheel for it to steer

In that case I let it to steer but it steered me the right way because I was lost by a lot

Now what I have to do is to figure out how to connect the plate carrier to the player and not make it float which means probably messing with the Arma 3 skeleton

The only good thing though the lod works really well

[stuck oyster]

same requirements as with the helmet explanation in the pinned messagges

[honest yoke]

The helmet one is a good one for it but the thing is

I can’t understand it because of the differences of the versions
As much as it’s sounds funny

I just can’t understand what he wants me to do

I’ll have to watch it
I’ll probably do it in the morning

But I hopefully hit the right nail with the Arma3skeleton

[stuck oyster]

Honestly it would be easier to start learning the workflow with something simpler

like just a box

[river granite]

how does a weapons model position in blender translate to ingame?
seems I have to offset the weapon in blender down and left to actually fit in a hand properly ingame
(moved from config thought i was in the right channel, i was not)

[stuck oyster]

what a random channel to do that in. The instructions did point you to #offtopic_bot_cmds t

[stuck oyster]

weapon proxy where the weapon model is glued to when equipped is always on the shoulder

you then need to adjust the position in the p3d to fit nicely

then make the weapon holding animations to fit the p3d

pistol being exception and being always glued to the right hand

and that causes the model needing offset to fit in hand

[river granite]

pistol is what im doing XD so essentially I have to offset the model if it's a pistol

[stuck oyster]

yes unfortunately

[river granite]

ooft
ok
tyvm

[stuck oyster]

this should be pretty well aligned sideways offset

[river granite]

The offset ive got
Issue im on now is getting the barrel to rotate on the proper axis

[stuck oyster]

for animating things you want to use "rotation" or "translation" type along with memorypoint pair defined axis not rotationX etc

the model.cfg basics are explained in the wiki

[river granite]

thats what im doing
just the memorypoints being weird

[stuck oyster]

make sure you dont try to have multiple animated selections on same part = dont work

if chained animations only the last selection of the chain is used

bone - bone2 -bone3
bone3 is in model

[river granite]

only have one animated section being the cylinder
it just doesn't want to spin on the axis, just keeps moving the selection up

[stuck oyster]

what do your memorypoints look like?

and what does the model.cfg animation class look like?

[river granite]

marked with red cause you can't rly see them, but they are on the same Y axis

class Animations
{
    class Cylinder
    {
        type = "rotation";
        source = "revolving";
        selection = "cylinder";
        axis = "cylinder_axis";
        memory = true;
        sourceAddress = "loop";
        minValue = 0;
        maxValue = 1;
        angle0 = 0;
        angle1 = -0.785398;
};
};

[stuck oyster]

you want to make sure the memorypoints are dead center of the cylinder

then you want to use ammo as source so it moves according to ammo left

axis being offset could be why it looks like it raises

and also you want sourceAddress be "clamp"

            {
                type = "rotation";
                source = "reload";
                selection = "cylinder";
                axis = "cylinder_axis";
                minValue = 0.5;
                maxValue = 1;
                angle0 = 0;
                angle1 = "rad (360/7)";
            };```

or possibly reload could be useful source too

sample from SOGPF m1895 refolver

[river granite]

so both memorypoints in the exact same position on both x y & z axis inside the cylinder?

[indigo mountain]

Working on making a path lod and action points so AI will open our door. The path lod is working, the AI I spawned followed it exactly, but it did not open the door

I have the actionBegin1 and actionEnd1 selections here and have the:

actionBegin1 = "OpenDoor_1";
actionEnd1 = "OpenDoor_1";

In the config (and yes that's what the action is called, and I can open/close the door just fine)

(Screenshots only have the roadway and paths lod enabled)

[indigo mountain]

This is what the actions looks like, just in case that affects anything. condition/statement are just the normal door code but put into their own functions

class OpenDoor_1 { 
    displayName = "$STR_DN_OUT_O_DOOR"; 
    displayNameDefault = "<img image='A3Ui_fdataIGUICfgActionsopen_door_ca.paa' size='2.5' />"; 
    textToolTip = "$STR_DN_OUT_O_DOOR"; 
    position = "door_1_trigger"; 
    radius = 4; 
    aiMaxRange = 5.25; 
    priority = 100; 
    onlyForPlayer = 0; 
    condition = "[this, 1, true] call ls_common_fnc_doorCondition"; 
    statement = "[this, 1, 1] call ls_common_fnc_doorStatement"; 
}; 
class CloseDoor_1: OpenDoor_1 { 
    displayName = "$STR_DN_OUT_C_DOOR"; 
    textToolTip = "$STR_DN_OUT_C_DOOR"; 
    condition = "[this, 1, false] call ls_common_fnc_doorCondition"; 
    statement = "[this, 1, 0] call ls_common_fnc_doorStatement"; 
};

[indigo mountain]

Figured I'd forward this here in case I'm just missing something. Will ai always be able to walk through locked doors if there's a path lod going through it?

I tested this on a vanilla house and AI just walked through the door even though it's locked.

I'd really hate to have to pick between AI opening doors at all and being able to walk through or having AI be able to walk through locked doors

[unkempt token]

Considering how oddly bespoke you have to get with things like actionBegin1 and actionEnd1 for each door of each building and what anim its tied to, I imagine whatever interaction between AI and doors is happening in some awfully tangled part of the engine

Gotta be my top 3 gripes of all time with Arma

[sly flicker]

hi. i'm having little problem. my model textures are working BUT if i put me shadows to disable the textures turn in to black

i think the is problem in my rvmat file

[halcyon wren]

Using super-shader?

[sly flicker]

yes

[halcyon wren]

Procedural texture used for AS? (class Stage4)

[finite stump]

When I try and rotate the UV in Object Builders UV editor, it applies it until I close the transform tool in the UV Editor. Any one else have this problem or know how to fix it? It's just a single geometry plane that I created in Object builder.

[sly flicker]

class Stage4
{
texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0,0,0,0)";
uvSource = "tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[] = {1.0,0.0,0.0};
up[] = {0.0,1.0,0.0};
dir[] = {0.0,0.0,0.0};
pos[] = {0.0,0.0,0.0};
};
};

[halcyon wren]

Try this:

texture     = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1,AS)";

[finite stump]

Never mind. I realized that hitting OK after hitting Apply was the cause. Seems you should hit Apply and just hit the X.

[sly flicker]

thanks. i will try that

thanks that worked

[late jewel]

Guys, how can I make these yellow things visible? (So that the hidden selections are shown)

[stuck oyster]

thats your mesh

and you need to toggle the right lod to see/edit it

in this case the 0.00

is this AI model?

its a bit messy looking

[late jewel]

No, this is my old model. A guy explained to me how to do it. When he was making the memory, he had the hidden LOD display turned on. I need this to correctly place the dots for the wheels, propeller, etc. Here's another example from a YouTube video.

[stuck oyster]

yes and now you have memory lod selected so you see the mesh as the background guide

now you need to toggle the resolution 0.000 lod so you can see the actual mesh

[late jewel]

but its not working, i not vision the yellow grid on memory

[stuck oyster]

well do you have any model in the 0,00 lod?

[late jewel]

no

[stuck oyster]

then there logically cant be any model shown at the background if there is no model in there

I would really recommend doing all the lods in your original program anyway

usually much easier

[late jewel]

okay

thx

[lone robin]

Do snap points, specifically on a bridge, need to be annotated in a model.cfg ?

[stuck oyster]

no

[indigo mountain]

What are snap points?

[north sundial]

Ampersands snapping mod makes use of them or you can make your own script to snap things together based off of points in the memory load

[indigo mountain]

Oh okay I knew about that, thinking it might have been some vanilla thing I hadn't heard of

[livid canyon]

I think they work in terrain builder?

[north sundial]

Ah forgot about tb

[livid canyon]

Maybe not 😅 I've never opened it #arma3_terrain message

[stuck oyster]

TB snapping points get removed by binarization

[livid canyon]

In which tool are they supposed to work?

[cunning temple]

Terrain Builder lol

[heavy kraken]

Anyone ever tried adding an open turret to the Hunter? Basically the Gyra turret on the hunter?

[stuck oyster]

the models are not editable

so cant

[heavy kraken]

fair enough

[indigo mountain]

Never did get this figured out, is there anything model.cfg related for path lods?

The pathfinding worked fine so I assume not, but I've got no clue

[north sundial]

Genuinely the action points may be too close to the door

Pull them away from it abit

Oh also from my experience, the action begin and end selections need to be on two vertices that are in line with each other

Sorry to clarify you need to verts with actionBegin1 and two with actionEnd1 assigned

[stuck oyster]

Is there door geometry blocking the path?

In the same model

[indigo mountain]

That would do it, I only had one point for each

[indigo mountain]

I mean yeah, but it's a door. Wouldn't it always be blocking it since the point is to have an AI walk through it?

[indigo mountain]

Still nope, added an extra vert to each selection and they still just walk through the door without opening

Oh nevermind they just opened it, but only from one side

[stuck oyster]

so a door geometry when locked or action blocked should prevent AI from walking through. One thing you could try is making the action position distance bit longer and also try thicker door geometry component

on path the models own geometry does block AI but separate objects it typically ignores

[indigo mountain]

They are respecting it being locked from both sides (which I'm very pleased about), and I can hear the sound from my locked animation playing so I know that's working

Just not sure why only one side would be working

Okay I forgot I'm playing arma, I had that message typed up for a little bit, tried again and now its being opened from both sides

[indigo mountain]

That's good that AI can actually be stopped, so I'm not sure why they still walked through one of the vanilla houses that I used to test it

[white oak]

You assigned both points in the config?

[indigo mountain]

Yeah

I restarted the mission and tested again, now they're phasing through on both sides

[runic plover]

Move these a bit step by step and go test after each step they are to close

I know it works i did single door objects aswell. BUT they ignore single doors in a building with a already AI path added in it

What i did not test is if you cancel the AI path in a building and add the single doors which makes a "bridge" to the AI path and continue the building path after

[white oak]

Just to double check
https://github.com/TheCodeNugget/A3-Modeling-Repository/blob/main/rnc_apartments/Variant1/Cube9/config.cpp#L169-L216

[runic plover]

Because my cave systems and tunnel systems work nice with AI pathes for the AI and these are all single objects placed together but like ive mentioned if you place a extern single door into a building with a already existing AI path it will walk trough and ignore

[indigo mountain]

Yeah I have the actionBegin/Ends, they also do work sometimes so I don't think it's that
#arma3_model message

It may just need more distance like Sentry was saying

[indigo mountain]

I'm not really sure what you mean by this

[indigo mountain]

So I spaced them out a lot (in several steps) and now AI aren't opening the doors at all, when before they at least would eventually

[runic plover]

As example you have made or you are using a already existing building with already made/completed AI pathes go into rooms etc and you place a extern single door with also own AI pathes, AI will ignore this door cause its already using the AI pathes of the building

[indigo mountain]

Oh okay yeah that makes sense

[runic plover]

Did you make the AI path a bit higher than roadway?

[indigo mountain]

Yeah, highlighted bit is roadway

[runic plover]

AI path needs also to be higher than roadway

[indigo mountain]

It is

[runic plover]

If your problem is not solved in like +- 3 hours i can help with my door i did / can also send my source if you are still on or ill send it to you via PM

At work atm

[stuck oyster]

is there also geometry component under the roadway?

[indigo mountain]

There is yeah

Do path lods need to be marked sharp?

[runic plover]

Sharp yes and only up side is faced bottom not

Also do you have in your cfgVehicles hasDoors = 1; ? Or cant remind the entry exactly if its called hasDoors bit something similar

Or was it animatedDoors = 1; 🙄

Number amount of doors

[indigo mountain]

numberOfDoors = 1, and yeah

It's also needed for the eden property and Zen's door module
Plus my own breaching charge uses it as well

[runic plover]

Yeah exactly so you can live edit its pretty cool for zeusening ppl
Im on my last task already ill contact you when im back home so i can help out better, if you wont respond and your problem is still not fixed until then ill send you my door as source so you can check out

[indigo mountain]

I'll be around yeah
Might write some docs for stuff in the mean time

[terse elm]

http://i.imgur.com/dw4W7SB.png Spitfire Porn

[flat moss]

http://i.imgur.com/nCDbRBt.jpg District 9 body armor texturing largely done.

(But weight painting for animations is a horrible experience, and I forgot to check whether this thing would fit with most uniforms, so it will probably never make it to A3)

[civic stratus]

How can I setup hitpoints for a large selection for a light?

https://gyazo.com/15becd7e44b3c593edf9f49749f58239

https://gyazo.com/71742ed128121e292b8fb7e28e3fee81

added some more points, dont think the first image would cut it

https://gyazo.com/c29b054f60bc1a46d9aad7f9a1bfa320

[ancient bobcat]

does anyone know what causes this effect on barrel?
and what causes this model or textures?

[stuck oyster]

larger picture could help

[stuck oyster]

can you describe the issue, not sure what we are looking at

[ancient bobcat]

from normal view on the barrel appears this strange orange effect but when view gets close it disappears and I don't know if it's models fault or textures to start fixing it

[south badge]

Cant think of any other reason except for mipmapping

But I had/have a similar issue with vehicles and I could never really solve it

[stuck oyster]

could be mipmapping yeah

make sure your textures have color bleed around the uv islands

[fervent steppe]

Yea that's how you would do it. I don't think you need quite that many hit points for it. Not that it makes a big difference. Just more work for you to do. In the fire lod I would just made a rectangle that takes the space of the three fluorescent lights and give it a glass rvmat. Then in the hitpoint lod you do exactly as you have done. Don't forget the mem lod if you want glass shattering effects. You would add one mem point for the origin of the effect

[civic stratus]

what mem point do I need?

I have light_dir and light_pos already: https://gyazo.com/180edce75f4a4aa1f200b27930434555

[civic stratus]

k done

my fire geo lod doesnt need mass does it?

geo lod is now a simple box

https://gyazo.com/baff4a59ff9609d05a606e14f1242fb7

rebuilt fire geo lod: https://gyazo.com/49ad87548aa022a7343368bf6cfb1198

[halcyon wren]

@flat moss For weight painting I have made a sucessful quick base skinning by transferring the weighting from the Arma3 example character .fbx. You might want to try that for a good working basis. I found that after using that I only require little manual tweaking to make it work.

Check out this file: Arma 3 Samples\Addons\Test_Character_01\A3_character_example.FBX

[tacit karma]

Someone knows what the solution is for aircraft bumping when spawned?

[woeful viper]

bumping once or permanently?

[tacit karma]

permanently

until moved

[stuck oyster]

its not allowed to do

we have 0 tolerance for ripping

author needs to give out original files if you want to change something

[crimson temple]

Bruhhhh that’s alr then I js need this guy to reply but that’s my own problem

[pallid nexus]

I'm starting work on a non-human character model in a couple of weeks
If I keep all the same bones, with distance adjusted slightly, will the vanilla ArmaMan animation set work with the modified skeleton?
Additionally, are head models restricted to human-shaped?

[gentle merlin]

it will, but depending on how much you change the proportions it might not look as good

the bones will be "moved" into their arma man positions, so your offets won't matter anyway - your best bet is to just get all the vanilla animations and re-export them with adjusted offsets

and yes you can make new head models if you want, but making the facial animation work is another story

[pallid nexus]

Well, at least I know it's possible now.
Have to see just how much work it'll be though

[gentle merlin]

If you automate the process, not long 😄

At least youre not making them all from scratch, now that is a lot of work

[pallid oasis]

JulesOf, could you give a basic run down of how toy transfer the weights? And in what program please if you don't mind?

Fat fingers how you transfer the weights not toy!! Lol

[halcyon wren]

Really any modern 3d model software can do it. Just google for your preferred software + the keywords "weight transfer". 3DSmax, Maya and even Blender can do it.

[pallid nexus]

Is there a pre-made tool for this someplace?

[gentle merlin]

@stuck oyster had a script i think

[flat moss]

@halcyon wren Damn you and your useful tips, I was perfectly happy abandoning it and moving on to one of the other running projects. Works very well, even though I'll have to tweak quite a bit to prevent the supposedly 'hard' plates from becoming too distorted.

[fast topaz]

i tried to import the fbx but I'm getting an error in blender that says that fbx version 6100 is unsupported and it has to be 7100+

how to fix?

[pallid oasis]

Thanks Jules

[flat moss]

@fast topaz I had the same thing. You can use Autodesk FBX Converter to convert the file, but I ended up using the reference from this rig: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=24137

[fast topaz]

thanks, I'll probably use the ArmaRig as well....I have some Republic Commando models I want to get in game for personal use....is this legal by the way?

[halcyon wren]

Yep, use the autodesk converter to make the file to binary "modern" fbx, then it works splendidly in blender.

[eager folio]

what is the limit for Vehicles in Arma 3 (Polycount)

[halcyon wren]

~30 to 35k before you need to start to think about using proxies.

It varies depending on the amount of sharp edges/faces

[eager folio]

thanks for the Info

i wil try to keep at a max of 30k

[halcyon wren]

You can push it, but at a certain point the game will CTD when the model is loaded. Then you know you have reached the limit. 😃

[eager folio]

i just start modeling, i do my first steps in Blender now 😃

[halcyon wren]

Then my advice is to start small. Build a container first, then an ammo crate. Slowly more complex hard-surface'd objects. It'll take some time to get anywhere. So don't start with a character model right away.

And complete the whole process for each before moving on to the next.

[eager folio]

i will try to made the TpZ Fuchs of the German Armed Forces. It has a simple shape from external without the "little" things. Or did you think this is too much to start?

[halcyon wren]

Is this your first model?

[eager folio]

It would be my first complete Model i will Build in Blender. I was build some Street Signs back in 2011 in 3DS but i don't have the Money to get 3ds and i am not familiar with Blender for know.

[halcyon wren]

Then hands-down start with smaller things first just to understand the process first before you move on to your main project.

also, you'll end up building your main project three times, because the first two attempts are just not good enough for yourself. At least that always happens to me. :)
As for the Fuchs... if you find solid and enough reference material or you have 1st hand experience with the vehicle, then it'll be a fairly easy project.

[eager folio]

i have a good and sharp Blueprint of the Fuchs

But i will follow your advice and start with a smaller thing.

[halcyon wren]

Just follow it through, thats really the main point. Start something small and get it ingame. then repeat and refine your process so that your main project benefits from all the lessons learned.

Also, 3DSmax is legacy that Autodesk tried to (rightfully) kill, but couldn't. If you had to star with something now that is Autodesk, go with maya. Also I hear magical things about Modo.

Any modo-magicians out here?

[eager folio]

Yes but when i look at the price of Maya / 3DS and Modo. That a lot for Privat and Hobby use.

[halcyon wren]

Oh absolutely.

[eager folio]

So i think for the "I can't spent money for 3d Programs" Blender should be the best choice.

[halcyon wren]

This was blender'd:
http://imgur.com/a/Cu0Lk

[agile osprey]

if you want a small start but still work on the fuchz, try modeling a wheel and getting that in game first

then re use it for the larger model

[eager folio]

@halcyon wren that pic is nice

[halcyon wren]

Also this was blender'd:
http://imgur.com/a/h2jBn

[indigo mountain]

Just a general modelling thing, but I'm trying to make a cog-like shape, but I want the teeth to be wider and I'm not sure how to go about that

Currently each tooth is just an extruded face from the cylinder, but I want to make them probably about 50% wider than they are now. I think I could probably do it by just making a new cylinder that has like 1/3 more face count and then extruding two faces, but that seems like a weird way to go about it

Or well, I guess I could just scale the teeth up to the desired width and then move the verts back up/down
The extruding added duplicate verts so that works out

[stuck oyster]

There are addons that make nice real working cog teeth if youd like such

[indigo mountain]

I certainly would lol

It's not for an actual cog if its for like animating it, that's just what I had looked up tutorials of since it was a similar shape

[stuck oyster]

try this. it comes with blender natively I recall. its just not toggled

[quick terrace]

@halcyon wren - adsk never tried to kill max...

@eager folio - for all autodesk products, unless you are into commercial work, you can get an educational license without any problems

[eager folio]

@quick terrace i was read this, but to get a education license i need to be in a school to get a valid license.

[quick terrace]

not anymore

you just need to have an email account

[eager folio]

ok that's new for me

can you show me where?

[quick terrace]

http://www.autodesk.com/company/educational-purposes

if you read that, you'll see it means learning. self-learning is still learning

it used to be linked to an university email account (or so it was back in the day when i was in uni 5 years ago)

nowadays, as long as you don't use it for commercial purpose (modding for A3 isn't) then you have nothing to worry about

you just need an email account to create your autodesk login credentials

[eager folio]

Ok when i Register it asks me direct on Get Education Benefits, they want to know my County and Role. As Roles i can choose between: Student, Educator, IT-Administrator and Mentor. On the First three they want to know the University on the Last there is an Information: MENTOR: An individual how provides guidance, advice, coaching or instructions to competitors in a Autodesk sponsord design competition

After i chose Student it will know my Educational Institution, Area of Study and Enroll / Graduate Date

[quick terrace]

hmm, i dunno, my account there is since 2008 or so, i haven't had the need for a new one

[pallid island]

one way to tackle your original approach would be would be something like: create cylinder - select vertical edges - checker deselect half of them - rotate selected around cylinder axis - select bigger (or smaller) faces by area - extrude along normal 🤷‍♂️

[quick terrace]

i know that at some point they changed it from student to edu license

seems they went back to their old way, in which case, go blender

[white jay]

Started to do some stuff for TFAR again. Here's a WIP of the SEM 52 SL, standard issue German radio for group leaders. https://i.imgur.com/M0AUXSX.png

also done with Blender 😉

[west vortex]

Has anyone else run into issues with shadows and hiddenSelections? I have a backpack that has multiple variants on one p3d. All these backpacks' shadows appear normally when just one unit is wearing it, but when a second unit puts on any of the backpacks that share the same p3d, all of the shadows that are toggled off via hiddenSelection are suddenly visible on any current instance of the backpack. The first pic is how the backpack appears normally. The second pic is after copy and pasting the first unit. The third pic shows a different variant than the first two (all 3 sharing the same p3d) - you can see how the big pouch on top of the right backpack is casting a shadow on the top flaps of the left two even when it's not visibly there.

[indigo mountain]

Correct, from what I've heard you can't have selections on the shadow lod as some other things break, meaning the whole thing always shows. Though I haven't tested it myself

[west vortex]

I figured as much but nice to have confirmation, ty

[stuck oyster]

that is it

[stuck oyster]

you are not supposed to hide things with hiddenselection

if you want variants

make the different p3d

or simpler shadow lod that covers the shared parts

but making mesh transparent does not hide it from draw

it makes it transparent

thus eating up more resources to calculate overlapping transparencies

[west vortex]

Understood, thank you

[last spindle]

You can easily lie too Autodesk......pretty much mist freelance modellers on places like Elance do, otherwise your price is too high and you cannot compete

http://i.imgur.com/kJRXsEk.png

[halcyon wren]

If only that specular colors would work in arma. This way you're stuck with either two materials or a hacky workaround with the environment map.

[woeful viper]

to my understanding, using autodesk stuff for modding is not covered by the edu license. So if you start new i would recommend blender simply due to the fact you can do whatever you want with your model and nobody will ever step on your toe

[stuck oyster]

We don't allow star wars mods here.

[vagrant zephyr]

already found it somewhere else

[livid canyon]

RHS helicopters have ROADWAY lod where the surface type returned by lineIntersectsSurfaces is "". If i have my ROADWAY lod faces with no texture, they get in game and return "#Default". How do I get them to be the same empty surface as RHS?

[bitter parrot]

Hi, whats the best ammount of tris for a gun to be implemented in arma? Is 11k fine?

More specifically, this gun I've modelled.

[muted lintel]

thats fine, iirc that about the complexity of vanilla guns as well

[bitter parrot]

thanks, its my first time acctually implementing something i've made in blender in arma 3 so I have absoluteley 0 idea whats the exact tris ammount that should be fine

i did find this article but its outdated https://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/2uxgjh/new_modder_in_the_learning_phase_how_many/

[muted lintel]

this is a good page to read as well
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/LOD

[bitter parrot]

thanks!

i'm also afraid of uploading it to workshop since there are rippers out there that will port it to their sh1tty roblox game

[muted lintel]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Binarize makes it harder but not impossible
can't really 100% prevent it,

[bitter parrot]

no point, they found the debrin for CDLCs even, so I will probably just keep it for myself

@muted lintel thank you anyways good sir, if I encounter any issues / have anymore questions I'll fowoard them to this channel

[marsh canyon]

You can actually conpare with in-game models' topology/wireframe if you can't sure it is high or low poly

[gentle merlin]

So a curiousity hit me, i know clipping would be unavoidable because there is no collision physics with arma cloth, but is it actually possible to have clothsim on a piece of gear?

I looked a little and it seems to be partly tied to lod properties and some config stuff but i never really dug deep

[livid canyon]

Apparently that happens if I use diag_resetShapes. Done through pboproject it's fine.

[stuck oyster]

as far as I know, no 😅

but I could be wrong too

[azure pier]

@stuck oyster Hey, are there good ways to use an image of a weapon from Arma 3 to scale a model properly so we do not rip from it?

Fuck, forgot to remove the ping 😓

[gentle merlin]

Im pretty sure youre fine with "ripping" if youre only using the ripped asset as reference and not redistributing it, but id wait for what goat says

Personally i dont see it being a problem as reference material is never included in the final product

[azure pier]

My friend asked that, and got banned for it so I’m playing it safe

[gentle merlin]

You sure he only got banned for asking?

[azure pier]

She asked the question, got mobbed about how scummy it was, then got banned for being unapologetic.

Goat will (probably) know the person I’m talking about

[gentle merlin]

🤷

[azure pier]

She was trying to re-texture a shirt, for context

[gentle merlin]

Well theres a difference between taking an existing model and reuploading it, different textures or not, vs taking an existing model as a temporary reference (for scale for example) in a program to create an original asset

[azure pier]

She was going to use it as a reference, but I guess the lines got blurred

[gentle merlin]

Yeah you need to be very clear with that type of stuff

[azure pier]

Yep

[gentle merlin]

Again idk about bohemia's guidelines here, but i highly doubt pure reference usage is an issue as long as it doesnt end up being redistributed

[azure pier]

I’ll have to check

[pallid oasis]

I registered For Maya last month and didnt have to give such details just a university name, and that was it it.

[stuck oyster]

we have 0 tolerance for that kind of business

ripping is not condoned in any situation

[azure pier]

Understood

[stuck oyster]

What are you modeling that you would need the gun for?

[azure pier]

Attachments, hence why I would need a picture for proper scaling and proportions

Or at least a starting point for said scale

[stuck oyster]

well the weapons are done in relatively real scale and the game environment is in metric units.

so creating attachments in real dimensions should work out

[azure pier]

Wait, do we have measurements for the guns?

[stuck oyster]

no

but also attachments are in position already

[azure pier]

I see

[stuck oyster]

so if you make say silencer you dont need the gun for anything

it plops into place

typically the attachment poinf for those are the 0,0,0 of the suppressor model

for sights you can use the sample sight from Arma3 as reference

[azure pier]

I was more concerned for other types of attachments, such as bipods or the XM2 Personnel Detector I'm reworking (Yes, that model is mine)

[stuck oyster]

and tweak from there

[stuck oyster]

as it happens the samples also have a bipod model

where would this XM2 attach to?

[azure pier]

The bayonet (pointer/rail) slot

[stuck oyster]

there is no bayonets in vanilla game

[azure pier]

For SOG

[stuck oyster]

thoseo are the muzzle slots as far as I can recall

but I can check

tomorrow or next week when I got a moment

the main thing is that you dont really need the original models for this kind of things

not even for what your friend wanted to do

well for how she wanted to do it yes, but that is not an available workflow.

and the actual workflow that can be done for retexturing, does not involve the 3d models at all

[quick terrace]

@woeful viper - it is if you are eligible for a student/educator license , or if you existing student license is still valid. It seems they changed it back from educational license (like it was until they switched away from perpetual licensing this jan 2016 for all their commercial products)

[tribal rain]

AYO question for all my face makers and identity creators out there:

out of these bones what are dubbed the ABSOLUTE ESSENTIAL
im having trouble weight painting the face and in particular the mouth seems like it wants to commit chtuluesque rituals because its just horrifiyingly stretched out and just all kinds of wrong, so im well aware that the head has a lot of bones assigned to it.
but which of these bones if any could be deemed as "Superfluous" now bearing in mind here i dont care for it needing to look perfect 1:1 here or flawless mocap level of rigging im justing looking for these simple things:

Eye movement (Got this working ✅ )
Eyelids blink (Got this working ✅ )
Mouth movement (Not working ❎ )
Chin movement (Not working ❎ )

[icy pier]

is there any guide on how to create a rifle having made my mesh already?

[oblique vapor]

Yes, anyone can register for an educational license. Wether you're in a school or not. It's still for hobby and private purposes, so they won't bother you.

[oblique vapor]

Do you guys use Rappa Tools ? I heard it's nice

[tall burrow]

How do I name a (memory) point in Object Builder? I've added the Memory LOD to my model, added a point, transformed it to (0,0,0), and now I want to give it a name accessible in config to let me use it as a memory point.

[stuck oyster]

You make a named selection for it

[stuck oyster]

Forbidden to pay for that. The tools are non commercial.

[halcyon pike]

Gotcha. Like the tools themselves to put them in game are non commercial?

[stuck oyster]

correct

so actual mod making can not be paid for

such mods would get banned.

[quick terrace]

i tried it once, find it too complicated, plus, i really don't need more buttons in my workflow (where most tools i use are keybinded)

i do use from time to time some of soulburne script set though

[lapis notch]

Hey guys, I'm new to 3d modeling clothing and newish to blender, used to only do low poly stuff or small 3d printing projects. I've made a basic silhouette for my uniform and I was wondering before I start adding details that might complicate things - are there any glaring details that'll cause issues down the line? (Other than the sample body poking out but that's an easy fix once I apply the modifiers and delete most of it haha)

I also realize it's already pretty high in tris so I will try to cut them down

[stuck oyster]

you can grab the Arma3 Sample files as reference if you dont already have that

you will want to keep the joints with similar topology shape so they bend with the character animations

[lapis notch]

Yes sir, been using that as a base

[lapis notch]

Forgot about that, will fix!

Thanks pal

[umbral shuttle]

I am a bit lost on this, so if I just have uniform and gun (or launcher), hands do eldritch horror man stuff . but if I put anything else like headgear, backpack, vest then hands are fine. hands are also fine with pistol only

[marsh canyon]

Make sure your uniform has all of the proxies properly

Especially memory

[umbral shuttle]

Res lod wise comparing to sample files they are all there. I see proxy in memory lod is that important?

[marsh canyon]

Yes

[umbral shuttle]

Okay give me a second now head proxy inst showing
path is wrong lol

[umbral shuttle]

Okay so combination of fixing memory lod, and cleaning out temp folder for pboProject results in everything being fine. next question is the bin log file is super big 150mb, I notice all of these warnings spamming
23:04:13: Warning: p:\pr_unsc_ce\ce_uniform\ce_uniform_srs.p3d:shadow(1000), vertex: 3941, sum of weights is 44, should be 100
idk where vertex 3941 is but what should the remaining I guess 56 weight be if not on watever the 44 weight is on?

Like lets say that vertex is left index finger, if its weighted 44% to leftindexfinger, what should the remaining 56 be?

[marsh canyon]

Means you want a 100 weight instead

[gentle merlin]

Mr clock's arma blender plugin has an option to normalize weights, saves you a headache

[umbral shuttle]

OMG ur so right

[last spindle]

Yeah, I half created a ribbon for soulbourne scripts, just too many of them

[livid canyon]

Since we have the animating floats in buoyancy lod for EF heli, does animating geo lod change total mass or center of mass?

[marsh canyon]

*RF
Yes IIRC

[livid canyon]

Will test it out. Maybe we finally can reflect pylon weapon mass changes indeed not yet

[rancid dock]

Hey guys, quick question — I’m looking for some different/less common mods for an Arma 3 PMC milsim setup.

I’m mainly after modular clothing, vests, and helmets with a PMC vibe, but trying to avoid the usual mods everyone uses.

Also, does anyone know of any mod that has modular outfits with Vans-style sneakers for operators?

If you’ve got any recommendations, I’d really appreciate it 👍

[stuck oyster]

#arma3_questions may be more suitable place to ask about ready mods

[woeful viper]

speaking of edu license... my 2013 one just ran out^^

[polar fiber]

i was still on 2013 until I had to reinstall everything following switching to Win10. Was glad I did in the end - many tools in Maya are so much better than they were a few years ago, some great additions to Bonus tools too

[woeful viper]

win10... over my grave

[polar fiber]

I've only got it on my editing/gaming PC. Do all my pornmongering on my laptop 😄

[quick terrace]

yeah i also have maya 2016, love the new tools and UI improvements to the modelling toolset in general which is now on part with max if not above

[umbral shuttle]

I kinda dont understand why this is happening, ucan see the shadows of the ear there, it only happens AO setting in AA & PP is set to anything not disabled. I have sorted the face and moved the only CA texture to top (that white covering is CA) and LodNoShadow 1 on the res lod

[polar fiber]

Unwrapping in particular got much better after 2015 bonus tools. Before that, the kind of tools on offer just didn't do what you'd expect half the time. I'd use the ancient Roadkill plugin instead because even that was more user-friendly than the unfold tools in Maya

[north sundial]

You’ll need to proxy the covering into the helmet

It’s because it’s such a large surface area of the model, the engine treats it as a transparent object

[umbral shuttle]

OOOOF, but then hiddenselections for it wont work tho?

[north sundial]

Yeah they won’t, is it only the worn edges that are transparent

[umbral shuttle]

I guess nvg slot would work?

[north sundial]

As in it’s either solid or fully transparent

If so you could make it a co and the transparency could work still

[umbral shuttle]

or perhaps the easiest option is tell ppl not use the AO setting in AA & PP cause tbh idk wat difference those make

[umbral shuttle]

ah I can try lets see wat breaks

[north sundial]

Transparency works on dxt 1 from memory but it works at 0 or 1 alpha, no in between

[slate blaze]

Guys does anyone know which mod it is for the 160th SOAR clothes and helmets and shit?

[gleaming tusk]

@stuck oyster I summon thee, if I wanted to make the hit radius bigger for a projectile, how would I do so?
I have a throwable brick, it has geo, but unless I hit someone with the center of it, it will phase through.
So I'm assuming it's a projectile size thing

(Also it's sim is shotShell because the grenade sim doesn't support projectile hit part handler even though other stuff registers being hit by grenades (at least from what I've tested)

[stuck oyster]

shots dont have physical form in that way I think. its just a point

and grenade is special kind of a thing that launches a physics interactive thing

[gleaming tusk]

Rodger, I'll see if I can't figure something out. Not entirely important at least

[stuck oyster]

make submunition script that turns the ammo into actual physX object 😅

[gleaming tusk]

Didn't think about that

[daring dagger]

any idea what's causing this? Firing the gun will sometimes cause it to change directions or disappear completely. Model looks fine in Blender and OB. Animations in game are also completely incorrect and not at all like how they're configured in OB

[marsh canyon]

Incorrecly assigned weights

[daring dagger]

how would I go about fixing that?

wait I think I know the issue

yeah nevermind

[daring dagger]

fixed the first issue, but one part of my animations still don't work and the muzzleflash appears way off despite the proxy being alligned correctly

all the anims work fine except for everything related to the hammer. All the vertex groups and bones appear to be fine and they're all assigned the correct axis and movement types. All of them work fine in OB

Is this still a weighting issue?

muzzleflash only occasionally is incorrect so I guess it is still weighting

[marsh canyon]

autocenter must be 0

[daring dagger]

yeah I disabled that as well and still have the issues

[marsh canyon]

Also the zasleh should have the weight too

[daring dagger]

how do I actually set up the weights?

[marsh canyon]

Same thing with you weight other parts

[daring dagger]

I haven't manually weighted anything

I know the blender plugin I'm using is supposed to automatically normalise everything

but something clearly isn't right

[marsh canyon]

You can weight paint manually, or just assign the Vertex Group

[livid canyon]

how do I get it so the _down anim goes from 0 to 10 when the source is from 0.7 to 1? Messing with value/phase but no success

class wiper_l1 {
    type = "rotation";
    sourceAddress = "mirror";
    source = "wiper";
    selection = "wiper_l1";
    axis = "wiper_l1_axis";
    minValue = 0;
    maxValue = 1;
    angle0 = 0;
    angle1 = "rad (60)";
};
// Wiper arms follow glass
class wiper_l1_down: wiper_l1 {
    axis = "wiper_1_axis";
    angle1 = "rad (10)";
};

[fluid copper]

You should be able to do it like this:

class wiper_l1 {
    type = "rotation";
    sourceAddress = "mirror";
    source = "wiper";
    selection = "wiper_l1";
    axis = "wiper_l1_axis";
    minValue = 0;
    maxValue = 1;
    angle0 = 0;
    angle1 = "rad (60)";
};
// Wiper arms follow glass
class wiper_l1_down: wiper_l1 {
    axis = "wiper_1_axis";
    minValue = 0.7;
    maxValue = 1;
    angle1 = "rad (10)";
};

[daring dagger]

weighting seems to be fine but still getting the issue with the hammer animations bugging out in game

[livid canyon]

I think the mirror makes the values behave a lot differently. 0.7-1 gave this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6AgkfT9ai0

Settled on this

// Wiper arms follow glass
class wiper_l1_down: wiper_l1 {
    axis = "wiper_1_axis";
    phaseBeg = 0.5;
    phaseEnd = 1.5;
    angle0 = "-rad (10)";
    angle1 = "rad (10)";
};

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Tle2g3EJI

[fluid copper]

Looks good!

[livid canyon]

Would the default approach be to have a static set and a moving set on source time, and switch between the 2 with hide?

[last spindle]

I swear by UVLayout, is bit different too learn, but is pretty impressive in how it can speed your work up....make model, send to UV layout, unwrap, relax, pack, send back too max/maya, then only tweak in max/maya

[stable needle]

I'm new to this, any advice?

[marsh canyon]

With what?

[charred bolt]

Yes - moving windscreen wipers enabled by a user action - static version hidden, previously hidden moving wipers based on time animSource, shown.
Depending on what you do with folding windscreens or damage, might also want to have a dummy parent bone for both static and moving wipers, which can itself be animated or hidden when destroyed.

[lone robin]

Optimize the model before trying to do anything else

[stuck oyster]

and make sure its not from some other game.

[covert grove]

Hello guys.
I start porting old A2 addon helicopter to Arma 3.
When I go in Object Builder and click check faces, got error “cannot generate st coordinates” on some faces.
Please, help me 🙂
I can’t find any solution in google 😭
Tex and rvmat is ok in game.
Or I should create new UV in Blender for model to fix it?

And second question, any guides for creating animations for cockpit instruments (like RHS Mi8 or vanilla ka60), alt, speed, etc and navigation map in view pilot LOD.

[stable needle]

I made a Geo_body and geo_wheels in the lod' geometry part

[lone robin]

You must optimize the resolution lods as well. From that picture I can tell it has an absurd tri count. You can’t just buy or procure a model and throw it into game. You also can’t take models from other games and port them. You’re better off investing time in learning how to actually model objects you want than draining time in trying to optimize a model that wasn’t meant to be put into the game.

[stable needle]

Well, here everyone forbids it. But overall, I agree, I do want to put more effort into this and be able to make mods. I watched a tutorial (there are very few videos, to be honest, and most of them are in English) on how to make mods, and that's where I'm getting the idea.

[stuck oyster]

I would recommend taking a step back from helicopter to first learn basics

also converting the A2 models has its own special things like the ST coordinates that will hinder learning

so to start learning, make a cube

and then add some moving parts to it

to learn how model.cfg works and how configs work

there is a lot to learn and using ready models does not allow skipping the basics

and basics are best and easiest to learn without all the extra processing of a ready model on the side

[unkempt token]

Why are my AI not shooting through the windows? I've got the windows totally unobstructed in view + geom, they only have components in fire-geom

They'll look at you and track you through them if they knowAbout you, but wont shoot unless you pop the window first.

Components numbered correctly between the 3 geoms too

Oh! It was the rvmat. I used glass.rvmat when instead it should be glass_plate.rvmat cause I guess the AI will check if its bullet can reasonably penetrate the surface? Cool tidbit I never knew they did

Yeah the only difference is glass.rvmat specifies Thickness=5; where glass_plate doesnt have thickness defined at all (deriving from size of component its assigned to?)

[stuck oyster]

should be the other way around and plate should have a defined thickness 🤔

thats how its typically set up

glass would be one that uses the geometry shape dimension

[unkempt token]

Oops, yes I got my order reversed

glass_plate has thickness=5

[stuck oyster]

yeah then thats the least resistant of the glass penetration materials

but yeah I think its the best to use for breakable glass parts

[unkempt token]

Is there good documentation on class DestructionEffects under class HitPoints entries?

i've got it all setup and matching the typical macro but no particles I can tell of.

Oh, they are spawning but they are absolutely pitiful

vs enoch vanilla building

[unkempt token]

Closest info I can find is here #arma3_model message

[unkempt token]

Particles aren't spawning even though the macro is working and everything is config'd right far as I can tell. No particles at the correct spot OR at 0,0,0

[terse elm]

i use uv layout too

great tool

[indigo mountain]

How do you make a shadow lod?
I have my resolution lod (only 157 verts) and now need to make the shadow but from what I remember it has different requirements than the resolution lod

It's a set of nvgs, if that affects anything

[gentle merlin]

off the top of my head the main requirements were: no material assigned, triangulated, all sharp edges, manifold (i.e has no holes), and all faces must be at least a tiny bit underneath the resolution lod's faces to avoid self-shadowing and/or flickering

if you're in blender (and your resolution lod is already manifold or it wont take much work to make it manifold) you can be lazy and duplicate it, then do alt+s to -0.001 and boom, it's "underneath" the resolution lod, then just triangulate and mark sharp and you're done

the polycount matters a lot if you're using stencil shadows instead of the shadow buffer, (with 157 verts its not a big deal but it's good to know) - i always use shadow buffer (used for buildings primarily) since it performs a lot better, however it does have inconsistent flickering issues with animated meshes (your nvgs included since it's on an animated skeleton)

stencils are used by default anyway with a shadow volume but felt like letting you know for future reference

[indigo mountain]

Unless I'm missing something, I can't find a good way to scale the entire thing so that its contained inside the resolution

Because scaling it down is going to always make it extend past the resolution on on side

[gentle merlin]

yeah you want to go to edit mode and scale with alt+s

and a very small value like -0.001

[indigo mountain]

Oh Alt+S, didn't know that was a thing

[gentle merlin]

you're probably either scaling normally and in object mode given the image

[gentle merlin]

ye it's a handy trick for this exact purpose

[indigo mountain]

I can never remember, what named properties would the res and geo lods need?

I assume lodNoShadow 1 on res lod (since I made my own now)?

Not sure if anything else is needed

[gentle merlin]

thats enough yeah, just checked some of my models and i havent done any other properties

[stuck oyster]

Inset faces also works with negative depth

especially if its all fully closed model

select all - inset faces - invert selection - delete the new faces that any open edge generates - fix model fully closed to work as shadow lod

[indigo mountain]

Okay got it ingame but its appearing near the chest
It is weighted to the head correctly, or is at least rotating correctly when I rotate the head

It's got a correct model.cfg (was taken from a working nvg) and positioned correctly in p3d so not sure whats up there

Oh does it need an autocenter?

[stuck oyster]

yes

[indigo mountain]

Tried 0 and 1 on the geo, neither fixed it

[stuck oyster]

the requirements are basically same with all gear as the headgear requirement listing in the pins

can you make sure all of those elements are set up right

[indigo mountain]

It was the geo not being triangulated
Doesn't make any sense to me because there's literally nothing in there (not a single vertex), but hey it works

[edgy gale]

What determines where a laser attaches on a rifle? I know there is a reference point on the weapon model but different lasers appear in different positions. Some match up with the attachment point and others float in the air.

[deep basalt]

the proxy is part of the weapon model, but some weapon attachments are modeled in a way that they dont fully align

[bold flare]

The weapon has the proxy of there the attachment goes on.
The attachment has a memory point of where the laser is emitted from.

The memory point gets multiplied with the proxy transform of the attachment (relative to weapon), which is multiplied with the proxy transform of the weapon in players hand (relative to player), which is multiplied with the player transform (relative to world) and then you have the position of the laser.

[indigo mountain]

What would make a weapon's flashlight always point backwards?
I have a custom flashlight and the vanilla one both shining a light in my face

[bold flare]

Mixing up the dir/pos memory points. I think its in the ItemInfo class

I think they need to be backwards

[indigo mountain]

They are, I don't change the ItemInfo compared to vanilla

direction = "flash";
position = "flash dir";

flash dir is inside the model, flash is on the lens
(flash dir is whats selected)

But it happens with vanilla flashlight too, which obviously works on other guns so I'm assuming its something with weapon config / model

[bold flare]

What you mean with vanilla flashlight.
You putting your model into a vanilla config, or putting the vanilla model into your config?

[indigo mountain]

I have my flashlight and acc_flashlight as compatible pointers

When I use acc_flashlight on my gun, the light is backwards. If I change to a different gun in the arsenal, acc_flashlight points forward as expected

[north sundial]

Possible the proxy on your weapon is reversed maybe?

[indigo mountain]

That'd make sense

[bold flare]

But then you would also see the model of the flashlight reversed, not just the light emitter

[indigo mountain]

Yeah no its facing the right way

Vanilla + mine

[north sundial]

Interesting, made sure no animation is rotating the memory points?

Like them being part of the muzzle flash selection or something

Don’t think that would work in any case but just to check

[indigo mountain]

Nope, not part of any selection

[bold flare]

The memory points are only looked up once at model load time, they can't be animated

[indigo mountain]

Yeah I didn't think they could be animated at all

[bold flare]

They get multiplied with the weapons attachment proxy transform, when the item is added to the weapon (so the proxy itself, also cannot animate after that)

So they just have a weapon relative static position, which is multiplied with the weapon matrix (in the players hand)

I don't see how its possible that the mempoints/direction would get reversed but the visual model doesn't

[indigo mountain]

Looking at it, it doesn't even look like the light is originating from the correct position
It should spawn in like the middle of it here but its spawning up and to the left (from the shooter's pov)

[bold flare]

Is the attachment model at the right position

It could be that the proxy wasn't found, and it failed to apply the proxy transform

In diag binary that would assert Proxy object for given proxy name (%s) couldn't found in (%s)!

[indigo mountain]

If you just mean visually, yeah. All the pointer attachments show where they should

Oh I just noticed that the gun has flashlight_pos and flashlight_dir vertex groups
That sounds like the kind of thing that'd cause issues. Idk why it has them since we already had a model for the flashlight :P

[stuck oyster]

just to check, weapon has autocenter=0 property?

[indigo mountain]

Yeah, gun and flashlight both have autocenter=0 on the geo

Okay nope wasn't just those groups, deleted the verts and groups, re-exported and still backwards

The light is in the correct spot now though

Oh but the vanilla one is correct now
So now I know its just in an issue in my model

[indigo mountain]

So I guess it's just the config that backwards?
flash is supposed to be on the lens and then flash dir is in front of it?

[muted lintel]

that sounds reasonable, flash being the origin and dir the direction its going?

[bold flare]

I just remember something in that thing was inverted, and I couldn't fix it because backwards compat.
Maybe only laser was, and light wasn't?

[indigo mountain]

That's what I expected, I had swapped them around earlier and it was still backwards, so I reverted it to try other stuff

Yep, light is working correctly after swapping them. So its the config properties that are backwards. direction is the origin of the light and position is the direction that the light will face

[bright echo]

do you have a view pilot lod on your weapon

that can cause all sorts of weird issues with proxies

if you dont have it I mean

[indigo mountain]

Yeah its there
Its fixed now

Laser I have is also working

[stuck oyster]

[hard lagoon]

Don't know if this is the right channel for this question but here goes. How do you do periscopes for vehicles? Is pip the best way to do it?

I know you can use the LOD wizardry to make it appear the view port is where it is on the top of the vehicle

[north sundial]

Usually just making it a turret

You can have pip for an inside view

[surreal axle]

Hello everyone. When I imported my model into Arma 3, there was an issue with how the model was displayed. In Blender, Object Viewer and Bulldozer, the object is displayed correctly, but when I open it in Arma 3, only the bus model is visible

[bright echo]

thats the model that displays when a model cannot be found

[surreal axle]

Okay, thanks. But that’s really strange. I’ve specified the exact path to the model in the configuration, and I haven’t found any mistakes in the path

[stuck oyster]

how did you write the path?

if game cant find the model the path does not correspond to whats inside your pbo

[surreal axle]

It looks like it... Would it be okay if the path started with @mytesthat? Or could the @ break the path?

[marsh canyon]

You need to learn what the PBOPREFIX is

tldr: your folder path =/= PBO path

[surreal axle]

Yes, that sorted it out, thanks. By the way, do you know how I can fix this texture display issue?

[marsh canyon]

What am I supposed to understand from this picture?

[surreal axle]

Can you see the clear outlines of each polygon? I’d like to fix that

[marsh canyon]

Do you mean sharp edge vs smooth edge?

[surreal axle]

Most likely

[marsh canyon]

Google "smooth edge" + modelling software you use

[surreal axle]

Everything's fine in the modelling software

[marsh canyon]

Then you might have a wrongly made RVMAT

[surreal axle]

I didn’t really do them I suppose that’s the mistake

[indigo mountain]

I get a lot of these errors from my uniform, but I'm not exactly sure what they mean

23:40:59 Wrong geometry convex component mapping  for person collision geometry found in path\to\uniform.p3d. Convex component number 3. not found

[sour bough]

Isn't that the thing where the old one isn't supported anymore

[indigo mountain]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[gentle merlin]

Try to just redo components

Either youre missing one or a vertex group for that component has no assigned verts

[indigo mountain]

So just like grab the Geo lod from the samples and re-export?

[gentle merlin]

Yeah - the one i grabbed from samples worked perfectly fine

Well, at least the man one

Not sure about the others

That or just reapply them manually

If youre using mr clock's tool it takes like 3 clicks

[indigo mountain]

Yeah I do, where's that at?

[gentle merlin]

Sec on my phone atm will grab a screengran in a minute

[gentle merlin]

so select it in object mode and then do component convex hull

[indigo mountain]

Hm yeah it made a Component01 and 02

[gentle merlin]

yeah essentially each disconnected mesh within the object has to be its own component numbered from 00 to 99

this one just does that with a button click but you can technically do so manually

[indigo mountain]

Gotcha
Error is saying Convex component number 3. not found, so should there be more?

[gentle merlin]

it's likely that you had a vertex group for 03 but it wasnt assigned to anything

or.. something bizzarely edge-casey 🤷 but ultimately geo lods just need as many components as there are disconnected meshes if done properly

[indigo mountain]

Should I do it to FireGeo as well?

[gentle merlin]

yeah fire geo needs them too

every geo mesh does

[indigo mountain]

Okay cool
Cause I did it and it made 42

[gentle merlin]

checks out 😄